For several years, companies have claimed that they are on a digital transformation journey to connect with the market and build relationships at scale. With many traditional events and conferences cancelled, and when all old school face-to-face meetings are obsolete, people and companies embrace digital more than ever. Here is some advice on how you can become more digital in your communication.
What will happen in a while? Will we finally keep accelerating the positive trend with digitalisation, and will the actual transformation finally be up to speed?
People and companies are increasingly turning to digital and virtual methods to maintain contact with friends, prospects, and customers; we:
- Hold more video meetings.
- Send more emails.
- Make more phone calls.
These are encouraging evolvements, and they are in line with other insights. Many things point to clear opportunities as companies hopefully plough ahead under changed circumstances. A few possibilities that stand out:
Align with marketing now
In the coming months, companies future success will depend on relevance, in other words, their capability to identify and connect with the right customers. There is a notable disconnect between how companies focus now and where the interest from your target groups exists.
The number of potential buyers visiting and engaging with businesses is now extremely high and not matched by a corresponding increase in turnover. Some companies might still be leaning heavily on traditional outreach, with the hopes of reaching as many people as possible.
Get back to basics, identify and prioritise your prospects and customers buying reasons and stop the "spray and pray" outreaches. Use your colleagues in the marketing department; they can usually help you narrow the scopes and sharpen the methods.
Use video in all interactions.
To rethink whom you're reaching out to, refine your companies approach to uncover deeper connections.
Encourage your colleague's to add a human touch to all interactions, e.g. record videos to attach to email messages and record meetings if you have the meeting attendees permission. And send them the video after your interactions.
Try to encourage your prospects and customers to use video in your meetings and make them comfortable using video, rather than relying on phone calls. Video humanises interactions, and you can look everyone in the eyes when speaking — and my experience is that people are more relaxed in their home environments. It helps build relations, which is what your prospects and customers will need as they try to navigate between their prioritisations.
Right now, it's easy to outline ways to implant a more human feeling in all digital sales interactions.
Technology
The increase of supporting technology puts your teams in much better positions. There are available and easy to use tools that can help sales quickly adapt to the practices above.
A better direction
Things remain touch and go in B2B, and perhaps will for some more time, but it makes me happy to see meaningful signs of evolved interactions. Hopefully, trends will follow suit, even for those that aren't yet visiting it in their pipelines.
Whether your company is in a survive, adapt, or growth phase, you will be best prepared for the future by collaborating closely with marketing, adopting video as a fixture for interactions, and optimising your tech stack for the present with an eye on the future.
Below you can download guides with some practical advice:
